astral combat spells

[parcelt]

I am interested in people's thoughts on astral combat magic. I mean damage spells - not including self-buffing spells.

What are the best astral combat spells? In what situations are they most effective? Can astral measure up against other schools (e.g. fire) in terms of combat power?

I was somewhat dissappointed in a recent game when trying to inflict some serious damage on the battlefield with a high level astral mage. The spells he could cast were not that impressive (astral geyser and/or solar rays I think being the best). Perhaps astral isnt the right school for that or I just hadn't researched the right stuff? What are people's experiences?

[Baalz]

Just like everything, astral shines in some situations and falls flat in others. Astral is, however, widely considered to be one of (if not the) the strongest school. The pure astral caster can cast soul slay, paralyze, and enslave mind which are all wickedly effective against concentrated, elite troops (ie the ones you usually have to most worry about). Stellar cascades is an underrated spell IMO, there isn't much it can't decimate once you get critical mass of casters. Horror mark won't win you a battle, but it can make the other guy sorry he did. If you're looking at cross path astral spells gifts from heaven is great, astral fires isn't too shabby, and neither darts can tear up anybody with low MR. Keep in mind astral casters can also form communions and one guy can cast light of the norther star to boost everybody. Boosting your astral path will give you a penetration bonus to help with the MR roll most astral spells have to overcome.

If you're facing large groups of chaff troops it's hard to beat fire evocation spells. Air (lighting) is good against smaller, tougher opponents, but is easily counterable (lighting resistance) at a certain point. Astral has no solid counter, fail a MR roll (which you will eventually do if it's cast enough) and your SC just got soul slayed no matter how many hps he's got...

[Micah]

Both the BE spells (tempest and solar brilliance) will do a number on anything without pumped MR, though brilliance is just a blinding effect. Other than that soul slay and enslave mind are pretty much the go-to spells. Astral has trouble with large troop volumes. Though if you have death on your mages nether darts can be incredibly brutal.

[Micah]

Baalz - Lightning is only counterable on slotted guys, since the best you can do for troops is a 50% resist bump, and since it's AN damage that means the troops are still taking damage consistently (as opposed to 50% FR, which makes the AP damage drastically less effective). Anyhow, sorry to hijack =)

[Cor2]

Master Enslave is the best it destroys entire armies, causing mini civil wars to break out. Its better than flame eruption anyday.

As far a damage, its mostly single target spells like soul slay. Those are effective late game against thugs, but also effective in mass early/mid game. gather about 15 astral 2 mages and have them spam mind burn. it does fair amounts of damage with 100% accuracy.

Astral is weak in direct damage area spells but its direct damage spells don't cost more than 20 fatigue to cast which means you'll be seeing alot of astral fires.

[Shovah32]

The single target, MR dependant spells can be nice in some cases(horde of S3-4 mages spamming soul-slay on MA Ulm and his pretender quite early on) and can even be spammed to take out SCs.
As said, master enslave can destroy entire armies, and with enough boosters can let you steal an entire army - a high astral mage with a rune smasher, starshine skullcap, eye of the void and ring of sorcery will have(I think) +5 penetration and 2 extra levels of astral magic. If you have a higher level mage and add a reasonable communion to that, you could be looking at some crazy enslavement.

Example:
S8 base mage(don't know how, maybe pretender)
Rune smasher, starshine skullcap, eye of the void and ring of sorcery.
Add 16 communion slaves to that(pretty viable with many nations) and I think that is 4 more levels of astral.
That should be a level 14 astral mage in total.
That astral magic+his penetration boosters should leave him with +8 penetration - say goodbye to your army.

If you swap either of the misc items for a crystal matrix and use either pythian communicants or mages with slave matrixes you can even pull this off on the first turn of battle, although it will cost you 2 points of penetration(or 1 if you have a S9 base caster). But with the matrix idea, if you are the defender you can cast even before enemy buffs.

Also, please note that with the original set-up you have an enslave mind with +10 penetration - enough to take out alot of SCs/thugs(other than those with insanely high MR) within a few turns of casting.

An Oracle with S10 can also get that +8 penetration WITHOUT a communion - eye of the void/ring of sorcery/eye of the void/ring of sorcery gives +6 item penetration and +2 high level penetration.

So master enslave is very fun to cast .

edit: Said spell focus instead of ring of sorcery.

[K]

Also note that Astral Fire (S3,F1) and Nether Darts(S1,D1) are some of the best combat spells in the game, as there is nothing that can resist them(aside from high MR).

[Torin]

will penetration items help with nether darts?

[sum1lost]

Shovah32 said:
The single target, MR dependant spells can be nice in some cases(horde of S3-4 mages spamming soul-slay on MA Ulm and his pretender quite early on) and can even be spammed to take out SCs.
As said, master enslave can destroy entire armies, and with enough boosters can let you steal an entire army - a high astral mage with a rune smasher, starshine skullcap, eye of the void and ring of sorcery will have(I think) +5 penetration and 2 extra levels of astral magic. If you have a higher level mage and add a reasonable communion to that, you could be looking at some crazy enslavement.

Example:
S8 base mage(don't know how, maybe pretender)
Rune smasher, starshine skullcap, eye of the void and ring of sorcery.
Add 16 communion slaves to that(pretty viable with many nations) and I think that is 4 more levels of astral.
That should be a level 14 astral mage in total.
That astral magic+his penetration boosters should leave him with +8 penetration - say goodbye to your army.

If you swap either of the misc items for a crystal matrix and use either pythian communicants or mages with slave matrixes you can even pull this off on the first turn of battle, although it will cost you 2 points of penetration(or 1 if you have a S9 base caster). But with the matrix idea, if you are the defender you can cast even before enemy buffs.

Also, please note that with the original set-up you have an enslave mind with +10 penetration - enough to take out alot of SCs/thugs(other than those with insanely high MR) within a few turns of casting.

An Oracle with S10 can also get that +8 penetration WITHOUT a communion - eye of the void/spell focus/eye of the void/spell focus gives +6 item penetration and +2 high level penetration.

So master enslave is very fun to cast .

+9. Switch spell focuses for rings of sorcery/wizardry.

[Micah]

K-
Nether darts is actually fairly counterable due to being a missile effect, but it's still an amazing spell, as is, say, flaming arrows. I'm pretty sure astral fires is countered by FR, but I'm not 100% on that.